Reflections
by Nova-Janna
Summary: Hermione Granger reflects on Draco Malfoy at the end of their sixth year. Slight spoilers. Not really romance but might begin to be. Not entirely sure where the plot is going so don't expect too much.
1. Chapter 1

Hermione had spent the first week of her summer crying, and her second week reflecting. Now, at the beginning of her third week of summer, she was realizing the reflecting was going to continue. Thoughts about the past year swirled through her mind- people, places, worries, tragedies, mysteries. But above all one image continued to drift to the top of the pile. Draco Malfoy. Draco Malfoy had been and probably always would be the bane of her existence, but since last year her entire view of him had changed drastically.

He had cried, for one. Harry had informed her of someone in Myrtle's bathroom crying and to her that was positively shocking. The callous, crude, tough Draco Malfoy crying? She'd always known where she stood with Malfoy. He was Malfoy, the world's most annoying prat and, as she'd mentioned before, the bane of her existence. She'd known what kind of horrible comments he would make to her in whatever situation because he was consistent in his prat-ness. She'd known that he was always going to be a prat. And now, suddenly, what with the crying and the tough decisions- she just couldn't figure him out.

It was quite possible that he wasn't as utterly disgusted by her presence as he was meant to be. It was possible that he didn't want to follow Voldemort. It was even possible that the thought of the death and destruction his father had helped caused didn't fill him with a sense of power and pride as he'd always acted, but that he actually hated the mere thought of having any part in it.

There was, of course, always the possibility that he was a Malfoy through and through, ready to kill whoever he was ordered to. Torture them. Watch them suffer. But would such a person be crying to an annoying ghost in an abandoned bathroom? Would such a person have hesitated before killing someone they'd always sneered at?

Her vision blurred suddenly. There were images of Malfoy being a prat and Malfoy being a prat and Malfoy being a prat, and then, quite suddenly, a Malfoy who just couldn't utter the words to an Unforgivable Curse.

Hermione thought and Hermione felt herself feeling a strong sense of sympathy. Sympathy to someone who she had hated and who had hated her back. What if she found him in the woods right then? Would she take him in, nurse him back to health after his family and friends had shunned him?

Yes. Yes she would, because she was Hermione Granger, lover of books and one of the most caring and soft-hearted people Hogwarts had known. Was there even a chance, if she got to know him and found he wasn't such prat after all, that she could learn to love him?

Yes, yes there was. Because Hermione Granger, being the soft-hearted person that she was, was also a hopeless romantic.

**A/N: This could be continued and it might just stay like this- completely and totally up to you….you just gotta push that button. Right there, to left. A little farther….That one! So, comments, queries, complaints, opinions, thoughts, letters to the editor….All are welcome. **


	2. Curse, Snap, Thanks

And, as these things go, Hermione found the blonde-haired Slytherin who had plagued her mind for the past few weeks in the woods that very day. To say she was surprised would be an understatement. To say she was fascinated would be an understatement. To say she would help him up, gently as to his many cuts and bruises and Merlin knew what else and to help him back to her house would be the complete truth, as absurd as it may seem.

How she was going to hide the rather tall, handsome blonde-haired Slytherin somewhere in her house was seen as a bit of a problem. Eventually she decided she would do her best to nurse him back to health, and, when her parents returned home in a few weeks, explain to them why he was there. As best she could, anyways, what with the fact that they probably wouldn't like to think of a strange young man who she'd always hated living with her while they had been away.

But, Hermione thought as she dragged Malfoy into her kitchen, she'd cross that bridge when she came to it. She placed him in a chair as gently as she could and tried to keep his head from falling back at an extremely unnatural angle. Then she sat down and stared at him.

There were cuts and bruises all over the parts of his body she could see, whether bare skin or through torn clothing. She could only imagine what he'd been through. It seemed odd to her, suddenly, that she would feel this rush of sympathy for someone who probably deserved what he'd got- at least in terms of karma. But at that the same time she thought that no one deserved to be distanced from all they had. If she lost her parents, Harry and Ron and the wizarding world- she'd be lost. And here was Draco Malfoy, clearly distanced from his family, though not entirely a loving one, and the people he had known all his life.

She looked at him apprehensively. The Malfoy she had known would have been quick to hex her if- There was a whisper and a zap and she was ducking to make sure that curse missed her. She stared at the young man in front of her, noticing the pure hate evident in his eyes and shaking her head sadly. Maybe he was a lost cause. Maybe she was a hopeless romantic. Either way, she was going to make this work.

"Malfoy, sit still," snapped Hermione later as she attempted to tend to his many wounds.

"Granger," he hissed, "This may not look as painful to you as it really is, so I'd- AH!"

"Sorry."

"You opened up a fresh wound!"

"I-" Hermione let her mouth open and close like a fish. "I'm making a damn effort Malfoy! Next time I'll just leave you in the woods to die and rot and GO. TO. HELL!" Despite her outburst and fairly evident anger, she continued to tend to his wounds until she'd done all she could. It was late evening by then, and she was thouroughly exhausted.

"Stay here tonight," she said stiffly as she gathered up her washcloths and towels, "And tomorrow you can go….Do whatever." Her formal response seemed to go down the drain completely in that instant.

"Thanks Granger," Malfoy whispered painfully as she left the room. All she could think of was that an apology might have been in order as well, but he was still Malfoy, all romantic thoughts aside.


	3. Malfoy Thinks About His Stomach

The next morning was one of the mornings that Draco Malfoy detested with every inch of his being. It was blue skies, bright sun, and altogether too-cheery birds flitting and singing. Days like that always failed to make him feel cheery- rather that he felt like he wanted to go on the war path and kill every bright, cheery thing he possibly could. Unfortunately for him, Hermione Granger was what you would call a 'morning person', and so entered the room she had let him use with a smile brighter than the sun, a plate of food, and a steaming mug of something. He found that she looked an awful lot like a housewife. And then, of course, he made the mistake of informing her of that particular fact.

"Well," she replied after a few moments of awkward/stunned silence. "I'm not quite sure whether or not to take that as an insult or a compliment."

"How could you possibly take it as a compliment?" He asked, gratefully digging in to the food she brought him.

"It could mean that you think I look so nice as a housewife that you'd take me as your own and we could live in a nice cottage somewhere and have lots of children and-" But at that point a sufficient amount of food had flown out of Draco's mouth to send her into fits of laughter. Once she'd regained control, she gave him a mildly sympathetic look. "Why are you here Malfoy?"

"I seem to recall you bringing me here, Granger."

"I mean why aren't you in grand old Malfoy mansion, celebrating your initiation into the Death Eater circle?"

Malfoy gave her a half angry, half curious look. "Didn't they fill you in Granger? I couldn't do it. I couldn't kill him. No Death Eater is hesitant about killing."

"Don't you even have potential?" She asked, looking sympathetic and sounding oddly earnest.

He gave her a look. "Granger, they attempted to kill me. Then they let me get away, because this way they get to toy with me for a good few months before I'm expected back at school. And, of course, if something goes terribly wrong and we can't return to school, they'll toy with me for a few months longer."

"What did they do to you?" Hermione whispered.

Malfoy steadfastly focused his attention on his food, and Hermione eventually gave up. It was only later when Malfoy found Hermione out by the woods behind her house that he told her anything that was even remotely informative.

"Various hexes, curses; torture in general," Malfoy said, leaning against the wall of her house.

Hermione, who was sitting on a bench and gazing out at the woods, turned to face him. "Torture in general?"

"I'd really rather not go into specifics."

Hermione looked at his purple, blue, black face and thought of the cuts and bruises on his back and decided that she wouldn't continue pressing him. "Why are you here? At my house? In muggle suburbia?"

"Where is the last place that a group of Death Eaters would look for me? Muggle suburbia. The fact that I just happened to stumble upon your backyard was a stroke of luck," Malfoy replied with a shrug.

"You think it was lucky that you ended up at my house?" Hermione asked, giving him an inquiring look.

"Well, it's better than scaring some grandmother who would call the police and inform them that I was trying to steal her precious belongings, or perhaps report that I was a lost child and then have my picture plastered everywhere."

"Yes, I suppose so…" Hermione looked off into the woods again, clearly contemplating the situation.

"Right, so – Granger, what's for lunch?"


	4. Growing

**A/N: I apologize for the short chapters - they will begin to get longer, I promise. I also apologize, for those of you who have me on author alert, for all the Breakfast Club fanfiction I've been writing. I promise (so many promises) to focus on both HP and TBC fanfiction. And hopefully I'll have a new DMHG fic sooner rather than later.**

If Hermione Granger had had qualms about taking care of none other than Draco Malfoy, her school-days nemesis and a complete and utter prat, they were exasperated by the fact that Malfoy loved to eat. And what was worse, no matter how much he ate, he never seemed to put on a pound.

"Malfoy, that's your third helping of pie!" Hermione exclaimed, watching in shocked horror as Malfoy wolfed down on a large piece of cherry pie (with extra whipped cream.)

Malfoy took a moment to swallow before answering, because Malfoys are, of course, very well bred. "Well, you baked me a pie, so I thought I'd better take advantage of it. Do you see my logic, Granger?"

Hermione glared at his smirk. "I didn't bake _you _a pie, Malfoy, a baked _a _pie. There's a difference."

Malfoy grinned at her. "Admit it Granger, I'm starting to grow on you." As he shoveled another heaping forkful of crust and cherries into his mouth, Hermione reflected on his comment. What had begun as a one-night stay had turned into a week of almost companionable discussions, and she wasn't actually disliking it that much. Draco Malfoy was starting to grow on her, Merlin help her.

"You eat more than Ron," Hermione stated, giving him a toothy grin and clearing her own plate.

Malfoy spluttered with indignation, as if being compared to her red-headed friend was the worst thing she could have said in regards to his eating habits. "I beg your pardon!"

Hermione rolled her eyes from her spot at the sink, beginning to wash dishes. "But what I really don't understand is how you manage to maintain such a waifish figure with the amount of food you consume daily," Hermione commented lightly, as if the fact that Malfoy was probably skinnier than her didn't bother her in the least. Which it didn't. Because she was Hermione Granger; she just didn't care about those sorts of things.

"Oh, I understand now Granger. You're not worried about me eating you out of house and home; you're worried about being fat." It was Hermione's turn to splutter with indignation. "Who'd think it?" Malfoy mused, eyeing her. "Hermione Granger, a regular teenage girl."

Hermione chose not to answer for some time. "What are you going to do if Hogwarts stays running next year?" Malfoy had since finished eating (surprisingly) and had joined her at the sink, drying the dishes she handed him and proving that perhaps he wasn't completely useless.

He shrugged. "I don't know. Go into hiding again, I suppose."

"What happened with Snape?"

"Snape is still working as a spy, so there was no way he'd offer me protection," Malfoy responded.

"Well, then you won't be able to go back to school at all, will you?" Realization finally hit her. "Because he'd be forced to turn you in to the Death Eaters." Malfoy nodded. "This is quite a predicament you've gotten yourself into, Malfoy."

"It's not as if I had a choice, Granger," he responded, instantly on the defensive.

Hermione let the silence hang between them for a moment before responding softly. "You could have killed Dumbledore."

He glanced over at her, still methodically drying. "I-" He shook his head. "No, I couldn't have." He finished off the last plate and placed it on the rack. "Goodnight, Granger." He began to walk in the directions of the stairs.

"Wait," Hermione said, and he immediately turned around to face her. "Thank you. For not killing him."

And then Draco Malfoy smiled at her, a genuine smile, and left to go to bed for the night. Yes, Malfoy was definitely growing on her.


End file.
